Canada: So often mainstream enviros let ’em destroy the forest so they can say they saved the forest…

Several months ago, two reports on the future of the Crown Forest in
New Brunswick received considerable attention in the media. After some
public discussion, the government indicated that it would be
considering them and releasing its decision in due course. We are
still waiting, and, the longer we wait, the more nervous I get. That
has become especially so in light of a small paper that a friend
handed me recently. It was actually a photocopied page from the
Fall/Winter newsletter of an organization best known by its acronym
CPAWS (Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society). An item on that page
dealt with the future of the Crown Lands Forest in Restigouche County
and was based on plans, hints, rumours (choose your own noun here)
centering on harvesting projections for the entire county, and
especially the relatively pristine north-western quadrant.

According
to the item, the government is actively considering allowing extensive
harvesting over the next ten or so years, with an ultimate goal of
having up to twenty-five percent(!) of the entire Crown Land Forest in
the county clear-cut and replaced by plantations. Three things
particularly gall me about these rumours. One of them is that they fly
in the face of surveys and studies done repeatedly over the past
twenty or more years that have indicated very clearly that we, the
people of this province and therefore the true owners of the Crown
Land Forests, do not want to see them sacrificed to the interests of
the forest industry. The second has to do with the current state of
the forestry sector. There is no indication that the present low
demand for traditional spruce-fir products (principally pulp) will
ever recover. To sacrifice the forest for plantations to produce those
species is irresponsible not only for the obvious reasons; it also
flies in the face of current wisdom that emphasizes the importance of
diversity in the forest (and its products) rather than on this
mindless fixation. http://tribunenb.canadaeast.com/rss/article/514099